Delta Sees Traffic, Capacity Increase for February

The Atlanta-based carrier’s total system traffic for the month was 14.69 billion revenue passenger miles, or RPMs, a 3.8% increase from 14.14 billion RPMs February 2017. Domestic traffic rose 5.4%, from 9.05 billion RPMs to 9.54 billion RPMs, while international traffic increased to 5.15 billion RPMs, a 1.1% rise from 5.09 billion RPMs the previous February.

Total system-wide capacity for the month rose to 18.03 billion available seat miles, or ASMs, from 17.44 billion ASMs, a 3.4% increase. The airline’s domestic capacity was 11.59 billion ASMs, a year-over-year increase of 5.1% from 11.02 billion in February 2017, while international capacity rose by 0.4% year-over-year, up to 6.44 billion ASMs from 6.42 billion last year.

Load factor for the month was 81.5%, up 0.4 percentage points from 81.1% last February. Delta’s domestic load factor increased by 0.2 percentage points to 82.3% from 82.1%, while its international load factor rose by 0.6 percentage points to 79.9% from last year’s 79.3%

The big news in the hotel world was the 2017 opening of the Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski in Havana, the city’s first proper grande dame of a hotel to open in the island nation. Located in the historic Manzana de Gómez building, Cuba’s first shopping mall in the center of Old Havana, the hotel is truly in a class of its own.
An oasis in a city that’s somewhat crumbling and …

A more complete story of how a Horizon Air employee was able to steal, fly, and subsequently crash an aircraft taken from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Friday evening is beginning to emerge as details come to light.
Richard B. Russell flew a Bombardier Dash 8 – Q400 turboprop plane for almost an hour over Puget Sound, even performing aerobatics, until it crashed on Ketron Island, off the shore of Steilacoom. Mr. Russell, …